


Support Weapon

by s_decoy



Category: Splatoon
Genre: F/F, M/M, Platonic Relationships, cannot believe i wrote this lmao..., he's my stupid flirty roller..., ill add more characters really soon!, she's my precious baby charger..., there's probably going to be a little bit of romance too but not yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_decoy/pseuds/s_decoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Private battle?" Evin murmured to herself in confusion, glancing around quickly to make sure no one was staring, then turning her attention back to the invitation... Was someone aching that badly for a rematch?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Private... Battle?” Evin murmured to herself in confusion, glancing around quickly to make sure no one was staring, then turning her attention back to the invitation. The sender’s handle seemed vaguely familiar, but she struggled to put a face to it. It wasn’t uncommon for her to receive messages, sometimes angry ones, from inklings she’d splatted a few times, especially in a turf war. This was a first, though. Was someone aching that badly for a rematch? 

A shadow crossed her vision as a bird passed overhead, and she stiffened, feeling her hand shoot backwards to the Custom E-liter 3k slung over her shoulder. She cursed at the ground when she realized her own instinctive reaction; she’d been trying hard to combat her overactive nerves in her past few battles, worrying that her shooting wouldn’t be as accurate as it needed to be if she charged to kill at every bit of movement from the corner of her eye. With a tired sigh, she tucked her messenger away in the bag dangling at her hip, then trudged towards the lobby. After a long day of battling, the last thing she really wanted to do was encounter some angry past opponent bent on splatting her, but her pride as a charger wouldn’t allow her to turn down a challenge of her skill. If they wanted to battle again after that, well, she might just give them a couple easy shots so she could go home and nap.

\--

The sunlight scorched Evin’s eyelids, and she opened them in surprise of the bright scene. Mahi-Mahi was one of her favorite maps, and she had missed most of its rotation in the lobby that morning after sleeping late. It was late in the evening now, but the wisps of orange in the horizon were reminiscent of the morning battles she warmed up with and made her blink as they reflected off the glimmering blue pools of deadly water. The glare from her chrome weapon was unbearable, as well. A sick feeling in her stomach overwhelmed her initial delight at the opportunity to play the map again. Had her opponent planned this? Should she have switched to something more suited to a solo turf war, or had she wrongly assumed that her opponent wanted a rematch completely? She gulped down air anxiously and shielded her eyes from the light with one arm as she waited for the battle to begin, twisting her trigger finger into its comfortable place under her weapon. 

She released a deep, slightly shaky breath as the beginning buzzer sounded to calm herself, and the first charged shot slid down the long platform before her. It buzzed in her palms and she scattered uncharged flecks of ink around the spawn point. Evin had seen the boy waiting in the other spawn with a roller, probably Carbon but she couldn’t quite recall. As with any roller she encountered, she wanted to be prepared with a Kraken before facing him head on, just in case. 

This was good, she told herself. Immerse her frantic mind in battle strategy so that she didn’t have to think about how odd this whole situation was. Evin mumbled in agreement to herself, kicking her anxiety under the rug to focus on the game as she charged up a shot to aim where the roller was mostly likely to emerge. After a few seconds of nothing, though, she dared a glance to her map. With a surprised grunt, she realized that the roller had yet to lay down a splash of ink.

“Over here!” A loud voice rippled through the stage, and Evin whipped her head to the source, the roller boy. He was well within her range, but she paused before lining her fatal shot up with his chest; he had left his roller on the ground and his arms were above his head, waving her down to the main platform. Without a clear battle goal, her worries came crashing back into her head. He swung his arm in a big motion from her direction to his, inviting her down again. Reluctantly, she stepped from the edge of her perch down to the grates below, not daring to move her finger away from the E-liter’s trigger. 

“What do you want?” she asked gruffly, squinting to find some sign of malice in his face. 

“A smile would be nice, for starters,” he grinned and propped his sunglasses up from his face, revealing yellow eyes staring at her expectantly. 

“Excuse me?” Evin glared into them, but couldn’t seem to find anything suspicious. 

“C’mon, smile!” he poked at his own cheeks. “You looked awfully happy after splatting me on Hammerhead today, you can do it again if you like?”

“Do you want a rematch or not?” she furrowed her brows, taking the opportunity to size up the boy and his gear. The powder blue of his short-cropped tentacles was fastened low on his neck with a white band, brushing the collar of a loosely hanging red and white jacket layered over a plain tee. The flexible leather of his ankle-high boots was white as well, awfully impractical for an ink battle.

“Not really,” he shrugged and looked her up and down, too. She waited a few moments for him to elaborate, but no follow-up came.

“Then why am I here?” she placed her empty hand on her hip and stared down the bridge of her nose at him, becoming irritated as he wasted her valuable sleeping time. 

“Like I said! You kept splatting me in turf war,” he pointed to her E-liter, “You’re pretty good with that thing.”

“And?” she curled a protective hand around the tank of her charger at hearing him refer to it as a thing. 

“I like a girl with a bite,” he grinned, showing off his pointed teeth as he sank into his shoulders and tucked his hands in his pockets. 

Caught off guard by the sudden admission, Evin stared. She cringed.

“Is this how you always flirt?” her own teeth ground together as she worked through the second-hand embarrassment.

“Well, yeah,” he shrugged, looking at her like she was the odd one for questioning his methods. “You’re pretty much stuck here with me for three minutes.”

“And that works?” she asked, disbelieving.

“Well,” his constant stream of direct eye contact cut off abruptly, gaze dropping to his feet as his cheeks heated. “Not yet. Unless..?” he looked back up to her hopefully and she shook her head vigorously.

“No! Definitely not,” she stamped her foot on the grate she forgot she had been standing on, wobbling in her footing as it echoed back at her. She hopped towards him to avoid falling over, and he offered his hand to help her steady herself. Evin dropped her wrist into his palm and let him tug her from her heels to standing flat on her feet. She stole her arm back, wrapping her fingers around where he had touched. “Strong grip...”

“Did I hurt you? Sorry!” he took a sharp breath and reached towards her again. “It’s the roller, if I don’t hold tight enough it slips with all the ink-”

“I’m fine,” she cut him off with a wave of the same hand. “I get it, I’ve seen enough newbies drop a roller to understand.”

“Or fall over because a flick makes them top heavy, right?” he chuckled, withdrawing his hovering hands. “Especially the big Dynamo ones!I wouldn’t even want to try lifting one of those,” Evin nodded in agreement with a snort. He stooped to grab the stem of his Carbon roller from where it laid on the ground. “Mine may not deal as much damage, but at least I can use it without steroids, right?” 

“Right, right,” Evin nodded, running her eyes down the weapon. “You’ve got the burst bombs, right?” 

“Sure do,” he gave a curt nod. 

“I’m kind of curious, why don’t you use the one with Seekers?” Evin leaned on her hip, looking up the short distance to his eyes and waiting for his answer. 

“I switched from a shooter to a roller for this set,” he laughed from his chest, grinning. “When I first started playing turf wars, I was splatted by this girl who threw a burst bomb and finished me off with a flick! She was the fastest roller I’d ever seen!”

“I might have seen that before,” Evin nodded thoughtfully, comfortable enough to carefully hook her charger back over her shoulder.

“I just really wanted to try that, you know? And it just sucked me in,” he opened his mouth to continue but was cut off by the alert that only 10 seconds remained in the battle. “Shoot! I guess you’ll be leaving, then?” he pouted.

“I can talk a little longer,” Evin smiled. She always enjoyed listening to inklings talk about the weapons they had fallen in love with. Lord knew she could babble about her E-liter for hours, and the fire in his eyes when he spoke about his set was sweet.

“Really? I guess I’ll just set a new round, then?” Evin nodded. “I can show you the burst bomb flick, even?” she nodded again. 

“Meet you in the middle,” she waved, the last few seconds were ticking down. “Oh, shoot! I didn’t catch your name!”

“It’s Kyte!” he managed to get out before the timer went off and they were both frozen, then whisked back to the private lobby for the results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoot... geez... i hope you like my silly little squiddles. tbh i only wrote this for myself but suddenly there were 3k words on the page and it read sort of okay-ish so here it is. i have some semi-old art of a few of these characters on my [tumblr](http://nontan.ga/) so if you want to check that out or ask a question or say hi that'd be cool. comments and/or critiques are really appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

As they had both expected, Evin was credited with the win. She had made an attempt to cover her base, at least, which was much more than the little puddle where Kyte had rested his roller could compete with. A new match was available immediately, and she joined. 

This time, when she emerged in her spawn point her ink was a dandelion yellow. She huffed, she had really liked the seafoam green from the last match. Evening light filtered through the fog in the air, speckling the asphalt orange. Moray Towers. Evin took a breath of the cool air. 

The game began, and she leapt from the spawn platform, splashing a few uncharged shots to the edge of the next surface as she fell and diving onto the next. Ink splattered the floor in choppy lines beneath her as she fired in the air, diving from each level down to the middle. Kyte hadn’t arrived yet when she reached the bump in mid, which she had faintly expected. On a stage like Moray, she had to be the first charger in the lobby to reach the prime sniping points. She gazed off into the billowy distance absentmindedly, peering at the buildings obscured by cloud.

“Heads up!”

Evin made herself dizzy with the speed she turned, raising her E-liter in defense a millisecond too late. He had jumped at her, a bad choice in a real battle situation where she was prepared to strike, but he had caught her unaware. A heavy glob of dark blue hit her square in the face, popping on impact. It clung in specks to her cheeks and tentacles and she barely had time to gasp a surprised breath before Kyte finished the move with a speed-flick that only a roller as light as the Carbon could manage.

When she respawned, Evin was still gasping for breath, clutching her chest. Being splatted wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar sensation, but it was always unpleasant. She certainly hadn’t expected him to demonstrate the move by splatting her without warning, but it was nothing if not an effective display of its potential in a real battle. With a grudgingly impressed sigh, she followed the path she'd made for herself on her first trip down. This time, though, she left a whirring Beakon on the platform above the middle, just in case he decided to try something similar again. Peering over the edge, she saw him hopping up and down in the puddle of ink he’d made, knowing she’d try to retaliate. 

“Got ourselves a jumper, huh?” she snickered under her breath, charging a lethal shot up and aiming away from him so that he couldn’t see her sight line. He took one bounce, she inched her aim closer. Another, her laser was beneath his feet. At last, she fired as he fell to the ground. The impact was loud, but she was used to the sound by now. Sometimes it would be punctuated with a shriek as an inkling’s words were cut off, but more often than not they didn’t have the time to get a sound out. She slid herself down to the middle and charged another shot, aiming upwards to where he would jump from. He poked his head over the edge.

“Truce?” she called, and he nodded compliantly. She let the shot hit the wall with a hollow boom, the extra ink evaporating into a fine mist. He stepped down until they were on the same level again, visibly still a little shaken. Evin patted his shoulder in understanding, she’d been hit unexpectedly by plenty of other chargers, especially when she was still learning the class herself. It was startling to say the least. 

“That thing is pretty scary,” he breathed, running his eyes up the barrel and onto her delicate butterscotch fingers, the real danger of the weapon and bearer duo as they clutched flickering chrome. 

“It’s not just a thing,” she scowled lightly, “It’s a complex, sophisticated piece of engineering!” 

“Could I try it?” he blurted, snapping his eyes back up to hers and pleading silently. “I mean, I’ve always been a little curious, but I didn’t want to buy into a new weapon class I might not like very much-”

“What is it?” she hefted the weapon into both hands for him to observe. “Say it.”

“A charger?” She shook her head.

“More specific.”

“E-liter 3k?” A satisfied smile crept into Evin’s lips.

“Custom E-liter 3k, God of all chargers, don’t you forget it,” she disconnected her ink tank from it and laid it gently into his hands. He nodded in appreciation, de-syncing his roller and connecting the E-liter in its place. As he felt around its light frame, she stooped to pick up his roller, connecting it to her tank.

Evin shuddered as she felt her ink flow into the roller’s pad. Simply holding the thing was a little like charging a shot. 

“So you just run?” she looked at the small pool forming on the ground just from holding the roller upright. 

“When you put it like that it makes rolling sound too easy!” Kyte whined as he flicked at the charger’s trigger. It spit a shot, and he yelped. “Sensitive! Geez!”

“Hold it down,” Evin instructed. “It fires when you release.” 

“Right, okay,” Kyte took a deep breath and aimed the muzzle to an empty ramp, holding down the trigger. “It beeped! Do I let go now?” Evin nodded and he released, tumbling backwards as the wild shot slammed into the asphalt and evaporated. 

“Recoil is a killer,” she offered her hand down to where he laid in a pile at her feet, and he took it gratefully. “You might want to refill.”

“That was only one shot, though!” he cried in dismay, hopping to his feet and inspecting the fill level of his tank. 

“Three charged shots per tank,” she nodded solemnly, “More like two, though, the third will charge so slowly you’d be better off refilling anyway.”

“No wonder you guys always hide up high, two shots per tank is scary!” 

“A little, at first,” she agreed, “But I prefer the ground. I have enough range to fill and charge before I lose my distance advantage.”

“But when you splatted me today you were up by the bridge!” Kyte recalled.

“Well,” Evin felt her cheeks flush and she redirected her eyes to the side. “I was building up my special. Just in case, I try to have it ready before I put myself in direct danger.”

“Makes sense,” Kyte shrugged. “What special you got on here, anyway?” 

“Kraken, of course!” she grinned. “Same set as a Krak-On roller.” 

“Scary!” 

“It’s great for taking out jerks who think a sitting charger is an easy splat. Teaches 'em a lesson,” Evin laughed at the memory of all the double, triple, even quad splats she’d gotten when an opposing team tried to advance past the mid she was defending, thinking she would be easy to take out. No mercy. “Do you want to try my job for real?” 

“For now, yes, but not ever again.” 

“Shoot to the top of the wall,” she pointed to the platform on his side of the map. He let the charged shot fly, managing to keep his footing, and swam up to the platform. Evin hucked a burst bomb at the matching wall on her side, cursing when it fell short. “These are hard to aim,” she muttered, settling on flicking upwards instead. She stood on the edge of the platform. “Hit me!”

She watched Kyte charge the shot, saw the laser line up with her chest, and she started to jump. Side to side, up and down, she stayed on the ground for less than mere seconds. 

“Go on, hit me!” she cried across the gap and he whined.

“Stop moving!”

“Hit me!” she dove from the edge bringing the roller forward to break her plunge. She aimed her burst bomb carefully this time, slamming it onto the path Kyte had shot up the wall. It popped and she leapt in, swimming to the top. As she approached where he had moved to cower in the corner, she lined up another burst bomb and let it fly. 

“Oi. Oi! Stay back there!” he fumbled for the trigger, face decorated with her yellow ink.

“Hit me,” she laughed loudly as she brought his own roller down on his head, an instant splat after the damage he’d taken from the bomb. The last few seconds of the match ticked away without him reappearing, and she found herself whisked back to the lobby.

\--

“Trade me back, I never want to touch a charger again!” Kyte thrust the E-liter back into Evin’s arms as they exited the battle lobby, headed for the train station at the far end of the city center. She took it back gratefully and pushed his roller back to him as well. 

“Same here. Rollers are nice and all, but they just don’t feel right,” she hooked the gun’s strap over that of the small bag dangling from her shoulder. 

“Fair enough,” Kyte sighed, collapsing the stem and stopping short as they reached the platform to shove the whole package into his deep backpack. “So, since you stayed to play me for so long, does that mean-?”

“No! No, I don’t like you,” she insisted, slapping away the hand he rose to her back. “But we can be friends, okay? You’re pretty handy with that roller, I’ll team up with you tomorrow, if you like,” she offered with an apologetic smile. 

“Definitely!” he grinned, brushing off the initial rejection in favor of embracing the new opportunity. “I know I’ll fight better with you watching my back.” Cautiously, he brought a hand to her head and tousled her bangs. She smiled and tucked the tentacles framing her round cheeks back into place. 

The cheery bell of the arriving train signaled Evin’s departure, she waved a quick goodbye as she leapt inside and saw Kyte wave back in the illumination of the station lights that cut through the early evening darkness. 

Once she had grabbed a seat by the window in the nearly-empty car, she loosened her messenger from her bag. Accepted Kyte’s friend request, opened the email chain she had going with her best friend, tapped out a quick message. “You’re playing turf war with me tomorrow!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that's all for a little while, i split the first hunk i wrote into these first two chapters so now i have to actually write again... please feel free to critique in the comments or in my ask box on [tumblr](http://nontan.ga/), i love feedback on my work!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is mostly flashback to give context for evin's weapon choices and for her relationship with demi. i'll bring in the final character soon!

Evin trembled in her boots as she took in the rocky scene before her. It was that new stage, Piranha Pit, the one she had been having trouble getting the hang of even with her normal weapon. What had she been thinking, testing an entirely different class now, when this deathtrap was in rotation? The long, brightly-colored gun in her hands was over half her height, what had made her think she could ever use something like this? Her aim was subpar, she was used to avoiding other players all together and inking turf over anything else, but this charger was for someone with precise hands, battle smarts and the will to splat any opponent that came within their range. She longed for the solid weight of her golden Aerospray, regretting her choice to even touch this plastic beast. 

 

“Are you any good with that?” One of the boys on her team nudged her shoulder and she jumped, shaking her head vigorously.

“I’ve never used it in a battle before,” she admitted, sinking into herself as a chorus of groans lit up from his side of the spawn pad. The tall girl on Evin’s other side was silent, which made her feel even guiltier for some reason. “Sorry.”

“Just stay out of the way, kid,” the boy that had asked her the question sneered as the starting buzzer rounded off. He leapt from the spawn with his Krak-On roller, trailed closely by the two other girls on the team. One held a Luna blaster, the other a Tentatek splattershot. They left messy trails as they made their way towards the center, leaving Evin to finish inking the base.

Relieved that she wouldn’t have to face an opponent just yet, she happily charged up a shot to fill in between their tracks, then another to begin to cover the path they hadn’t taken. After only a few more, though, she found her ink tank empty and immersed herself to refill. How was anyone supposed to cover turf with one of these things if a full tank only yielded a couple shots? She stood and continued to ink, grudgingly monitoring her low ink efficiency to keep it in check. As she charged for the final shot on her tank, she spied a blue laser from the corner of her eye, contrasting against the slimy green of her own ink. When she realized where it had to be coming from, it was too late. A loud clash, like the sharpening of a knife, echoed behind her eyes as she stood back up a few seconds later, finding herself upon the spawn pad. Staring down from across the conveyor belt was a smirking girl with a scoped E-liter 3k under her arm. 

Evin fumbled for the trigger of her Splat Charger, not daring to signal for help from her teammates. She’d already gone and gotten herself splatted within the first half minute, and they thought she was enough of a scrub without her needing help to take care of a single opponent. The other charger watched her ready a shot and bring her wobbly aim up, then jumped out of her way just as she released the shot. The inkling girl snickered from across the belt and signaled to another of her teammates to join her. Evin took a glance at her map: the rest of her team was still fighting for mid, so there was no hope of a sudden rescue, and to top it off the blue team was slowly overtaking them. She looked back up to the E-liter and saw that a teammate had joined her, a boy with a Splatterscope. As she held her breath and charged another shot, they fired their own into the green tracks her teammates had left on the conveyor path, swimming against the current until they were too close for her to fire at from the spawn pad. Evin watched helplessly as their blue overtook the green she had spread, the boy perching himself at the top of the tower path and aiming his Splatterscope at her head. She may not have been used to using a charger, but she knew what the laser hovering around her meant. 

The spawn bubbled as one of her teammates returned from a splat, the tall girl that hadn’t spoken earlier. Evin’s cheeks flushed as she saw the girl observe the mess she’d allowed to overtake the base with her terrible shooting.

“Sorry,” she whimpered again, turning her eyes to her feet so she didn’t have to look at the laughing faces of the two enemy chargers or the surely-annoyed expression on her teammate’s face.

“It’s okay,” the girl shrugged, spraying outwards with her splattershot at the blue ink creeping up towards their spawn. “Chargers are hard.”

“I shouldn’t have brought a weapon I can’t use!” Evin broke down, determined to make the girl reprimand her, she was stuck with this green abomination for the rest of the day. She sniffled and lifted it slowly, arms and legs shaking as she struggled to refrain from sobbing. She fired at the ground just to earn a few more points in what was sure to be a staggering loss, but the opposing chargers covered her trails right back up with their deep blue. The splattershot rubbed Evin’s shoulder gently, popping back up from the ink after a refill of her tank.

“You’ll learn,” she shot a few more rounds off as the chargers continued to cover up the ink they spread. One was still hiding a few steps below them, and the other had moved to cover the path that lead off towards the side platforms. The tall girl pinched Evin’s side to get her attention, putting a finger to her lips as she readied her special weapon and nodded her head towards the boy along the side. “Charge a shot.”

With widening eyes, Evin complied. She hadn’t even thought about using her special weapon, or her sub for that matter. Now that she thought about it, she probably could have taken both of the opposing chargers out a while ago if she’d been smart enough to use her splat bombs. 

The splattershot activated her Inkzooka, immediately splashing at the girl hiding below them. She was washed away in the swirling ink with a surprised cry, but the boy heard the special attack and leapt out of range before he could join his teammate. In the distraction, Evin painstakingly lined up her sights with his chest and released. Miraculously, the shot hit and his Splatterscope sank into the rippled path of green ink on the ground where he had stood a second ago.

“Go, go!” the splattershot gave her a shove from behind, and Evin leapt onto the step below with a new vigor. She charged and aimed to re-cover the conveyor as her teammate went around the other side of the grated tower, flanking the map’s midsection as she rejoined their other comrades on the front lines. Evin happily finished off the base, even venturing further up to the tower peak. The E-liter girl was peeking around the middle conveyor belts, oblivious to Evin’s presence as she aimed her scope towards the foot end of the green team’s side. As silently as possible, and making sure to aim her sight laser inconspicuously, Evin charged a shot and slinked it towards her. With that same sickening clash, the E-liter burst into green ink. 

“Good one!” Came a shout from behind the same conveyor, the splattershot was waving. Evin wiggled her fingers back shyly, that had really only been a lucky shot, right? 

The countdown for the final ten seconds of the match began. The splattershot turned her attention back to the advance of the blue team’s remaining members, activating her inkzooka again. 

“What special...?” Evin struggled to remember the special weapon in her kit. Bomb rush, wasn’t it? She realized that there wasn’t enough blue here to warrant the attack and opened her map as quickly as she could, locating a teammate near a mass of enemy ink. Down on the far foot of the map, the Luna blaster was struggling to deal with the massive piece of territory on her own under the pressure of the timer. Thanking the quick-jump gear she had equipped mostly for escaping, Evin made her way to the blaster’s aid as the clock ticked down. As she landed, she began to fling the bombs towards the part of the territory that her teammate had missed. She got three out before the timer ended, and one rolled into the water, but the remaining two popped and covered the ground satisfactorily. 

The blaster girl shot her a grateful smile as they were whisked back to the lobby for results. 

\--

“We still lost?” the Luna blaster whined with her hands on her hips as they all observed the final score. Green had lost 36.9% to blue, 48.3%. 

“We did have a scrub charger,” the boy with the roller huffed, and Evin looked shamefully at her trail boots, she had been hoping nobody would mention her place at the bottom of the rankings. 

“If the scrub got more kills than you, what does that say?” the splattershot hissed from the corner of her mouth and the top position on their team’s leaderboard. Evin didn’t even know when she’d found the time for seven splats. 

“You’re in third!” the blaster scoffed as well. “And I saw you fall off the edge! If anything, we had two losers, and at least one of them remembered they had a special weapon!” she spat as she shoved past Evin and the roller on her way out of the lobby, straightening the crisp collar of her white blouse.

Evin shrunk under the renewed glare of the Krak-On roller. The splattershot whacked his cheek with the back of her hand.

“Get out.” he scrambled for the door like a kicked puppy at the command of the more experienced player, and the splattershot brought her long fingers to Evin’s face instead. She braced herself for a slap for her performance, but was surprised when she found her cheek pinched.

“Ah, hey-!” 

“You did good, kid!” In an instant, her hands had shifted focus to the charger in Evin’s hands, hefting it up and observing. “Just need some practice, yeah?”

“I guess,” Evin shrugged, still in disbelief that her teammates had defended her performance. 

“Wanna stick with me today? I’ll be your bodyguard ‘til you figure it out!” she dropped the weapon back into Evin’s unprepared hands, leaving her grasping at it to keep it from the floor. “What’d you say your name was, anyway?” 

“It’s Evin,” she murmured in awe, wondering if she’d heard the offer correctly, looking up to meet the girl’s excited eyes. Now that the stress of the battle was no more, she finally had a chance to get a really good look at her teammate. She stood half a foot taller than Evin, but a portion of that was due to the oversized red Hi-Horses she wore. A loose red flannel hung around her wide shoulders, open to reveal a plain white shirt underneath. The wide eyes behind her black glasses were a bright pink, and the little ring in her nose was a glinting silver.

“I’m Demi,” she grinned, smoothing her grabby hands over the tentacles hanging over Evin’s ears and arms. “Gotta do something about these, though, gonna get in the way...” She noticed Demi’s own tentacles were tied in a secure loop at the back of her neck, presumably so they didn’t disturb her shooting. 

“I think they’ll be fine..!” Evin protested as the unfamiliar girl skipped to her back and dragged the heavy extra limbs behind her shoulders. 

“Oh, but you’re so cute when you pull them back like this!” Evin felt her cheeks turn hot and at the same time there was an odd squeeze where Demi’s hands had grabbed her tentacles back. A glance over her shoulder found a band fastened around them, tying them together and out of her face. 

“Erm, thank you?” she blinked, not sure if she meant it for being called cute or for the tie. 

“Yep!” Demi snatched up her wrist and tugged her back towards the main lobby, catching her by surprise, and she stumbled after her. “Get ready to get really good at that thing!”

\--

The black metal fence surrounding Inkopolis Tower was cold against Demi’s neck and shoulders as she propped herself up against it, absentmindedly running her tongue over her sharp front teeth as she observed the flashing displays before her. The shady, covered front stoop of the Lobby was buzzing as teams and solo players made their way inside. It was late in the morning, so the initial early rush had subsided, leaving her to wait for her companions of the day.

Demi had been battling in Ranked exclusively for the past few days, tired of turf war after the recent Splatfest. Evin never grew sick of non-competitive battle, though, so they hadn’t battled together in what felt like ages. No amount of pleading and and begging could drag Evin’s scaredy-cat ass into Ranked when she wasn’t feeling it, though, which annoyed Demi to no end. Evin was the best support one could ask from a B rank charger, and all Demi wanted to do was help her climb her way higher.

Today was for turf war, though, Demi reminded herself. She had found herself bubbling when Evin had asked to meet at the Tower. She was bringing a friend, sure, but that wasn’t important. What was important was playing with her best friend again, and the chance to tempt her into Ranked for a few matches.

“Demi!” Speak of the devil. Demi glanced upwards from inspecting the scuffs on her shoes to find Evin running full speed towards her, wearing her typical pink sweatshirt and dragging a boy far taller than she. As they cut through the chatter of the Plaza, Demi spied a roller peeking from his bag. His Varsity jacket was zipped up to his chin and a pair of delicate-armed sunglasses rested atop his head. His fingers were interlocked with Evin’s as they ran, and the stupid grin on his face said that he couldn’t have been happier about it. 

“Hey, hon,” she tousled Evin’s bangs in a replied greeting when the pair drew close enough, eyeing the boy suspiciously.

“Kyte, this is Demi! Demi, Kyte,” Evin made a quick introduction, bringing Kyte’s hand up and dropping it in Demi’s waiting palm for a shake. He looked intimidated now that he was close enough to see her and be caught in her glare. He gave a limp shake and Evin was satisfied, practically skipping towards the sliding doors and expecting them to follow. Kyte took the opportunity to escape Demi’s scrutiny, heaving his bag to the floor and unsheathing a Carbon roller. Demi raised a brow, normally she saw the Deco, but his did indeed appear to be of the regular variety. That, of course, meant that they shared a special, and Demi was quite partial to having the only Inkzooka on the field. 

“Demi, we’re going, come on!” Evin whined as she hopped in place at the door, waiting for her to unearth her splattershot and join. 

“I’m coming,” she rolled her eyes, mostly as a show for Evin, and tugged the weapon free from her backpack. As she passed the boy on the ramp leading inside, she nudged him out of her way with her shoulder sharply, and he jumped. “Don’t get in the way, roller,” she hissed, and he froze. Demi refrained from making her statement clearer: she did mean for him to keep our of her way in the battle, of course, but she couldn’t have him stepping in between her and Evin, either. She could only hope his little mind caught that.


	4. Chapter 4

“Taking bets for how many times Kyte is splatted!” Demi drawled as she noticed the normal glint of chrome was missing from their spawn pad, Evin was on the other team. “Upwards of five is mine.” The worst part of having a three person squad in turf war was being split apart, and Evin had no problem with shooting her friends.

“I can defend myself!” Kyte whined back, unappreciative of his teammate’s constant teasing. More like, friend of a teammate. He hated to consider Demi as part of the team, her spray of insults caused as much damage as her rapid-fire shooter.

“Right, right,” Demi rolled her pink eyes and rolled her wrist with Tentatek splattershot in hand to a starting position. Kyte took her hint as the timer counted down to the match’s beginning, readying his firm grip on his Carbon roller. 

The buzzer sounded, and Kyte immediately shoved Demi aside, barrelling down her favorite route to mid- which he knew, of course. The thin path to the far right of Walleye Warehouse was fine for a roller, but she loved to hog it to build her special. She shouted at him incoherently as she was forced to charge down the middle of the map with one other player as the fourth took the far left. He laughed as he ran, sliding the roller along the dusty floor before him. Besides ruining the beginning of the match for Demi, he knew he could catch Evin by surprise as she inked the small side area where he would emerge. Playing with and against the two girls had certainly given him a particular taste for their ink.

As his path opened into the boxy side, he could hear the powerful charge and release of Evin’s E-liter. He suspected she was inking the back path above him, as per usual. After a sloppy coat of pink down on the floor, he waited, pressed against the wall that blocked the view of mid with a burst bomb at the ready. Frustrating Evin early on was always his strategy, she shook when she was upset and her aim wasn’t as careful, which made slip-ups in the area she guarded less deadly. 

A quick glance at his map told Kyte that the path he was camping was, indeed, being inked.

From the other side of the wall at his back, he heard the distinctive sound of a charger splatting an inkling. 

Kyte’s ink ran cold. The other team had only Evin’s E-liter, and his own team lacked a charger completely, so Evin had just splatted someone. He looked back up to the grate above and found himself staring into the dark barrels of a Dual Squelcher. 

The shooter had paused to glare at him, and Kyte appreciated the prolonged few seconds of life as he sized up his opponent, match seemingly grinding to a halt as he stared. The Squelcher’s face was obscured by a clunky gas mask, cotton-candy blue tentacles hung long at her back, as well as over her chest, swinging with the soft bounce of her leg. Her ears were hardly visible through the assortment of piercings decorating them, and Kyte took a breath as his eyes wandered down her bare neck quickly so he would have time for the rest of her. An oversized gray sweatshirt cut over her dark collarbones, loose and baggy enough that he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the shape of her waist. Her legs, hidden above her mid-calves but obviously decently muscled, covered by plain black leggings with only a thin stripe of blue up the sides. Patterned plimsolls rested on the grate below her.

He thought he heard a bubble of laughter from inside her mask as he ran his eyes up and down and then back to stare straight at her double-barreled shooter. A glob of ink smacked his cheek hard, then another on his neck, chest, stomach, and a few seconds later he was breathing heavily on his own team’s spawn pad, wondering if he could get back fast enough to meet her again.

A glance at the timer and map told him he didn’t dare check. Looking back out to the live stage confirmed his fears, blue was taking over the middle and quickly storming towards his own team’s side. He wasted no time in leaping forwards into the ink he and his teammates had spread around their spawn and hurriedly swimming towards the left path leading to the middle, where there seemed to be some semblance of pink left on the ground- a safe place to emerge back into the fray.

Kyte managed to spend the next half-minute of the match alive before Evin spotted him peeking out from the boxes stacked in the middle of the stage and sent him back to the start. Unfortunate. He’d been saving his Inkzooka to take her out from her high perch atop a shipping container. Now he’d have to leave that to Demi or one of the other members of his temporary team, there was no way he could get close enough to take her out with burst bombs and she’d splat him far before he could get sufficient flick damage on her from below. Besides, if he got too near to the blue team’s side of the map, that lovely princess with the Squelcher would undoubtedly jump at the opportunity to shoot him in the face again. Not that he minded, really, but letting a cute girl splat you over and over wasn’t exactly the best turf war strategy.

“Minute to go!” He heard Demi growl like a hungry predator as she whipped past his position behind the middle crates, activating her Inkzooka with the same plan he’d had earlier. A cry of surprise emerged from Evin as she ducked the first shot by leaping to the ground and hiding behind the container she had stood upon. He saw the muzzle of her weapon peek from the right of the red crate as she continued to whine pitifully within Demi’s range of hearing. 

“So mean, using your special to just take me out!” He dodged as he noticed the little blue dot of light on his abdomen, narrowly avoiding a splat. 

“Demi, get-!” Before he could finish his warning, he was knocked back to the spawn by a deafening explosion- a splat bomb rolled between his heels while he was distracted. Demi was now alone on the battlefield, Inkzooka about to expire and two enemies closing in on her from either side. He stood with his ankles submerged in the spawn ink for a moment as he awaited her imminent arrival. 

“Not a word, roller,” she spat like his weapon class was an insult as she emerged, shaking the ink from her newly reformed cheeks. 

“Which got you? Evin or the other girl?”

“Evin,” she huffed through her nose. “What other girl?” 

“You didn’t see her?” Kyte raised a skeptical brow, but she hadn’t stuck around for an answer. He remembered the battle and rushed out behind her.

\--

“Well, I saw this coming,” Demi huffed with crossed arms, glancing down the leaderboard for the match. Her own name was fifth on the two-part list: Best player on the losing team. She glared at Evin as she celebrated in a mockingly-loud voice. Kyte grunted absentmindedly in response as he struggled to pick the Squelcher out of the small crowd. When he finally caught sight, she was shoulder to shoulder with Evin as the charger imparted a congratulations on the top leaderboard spot she’d taken. The shooter seemed uninterested at best, waving off an invitation to play again in favor of exiting the lobby for a short break. Kyte trotted after her, but she didn’t seem to notice as she made her way outside. 

Evin clearly wasn’t interested in being any more than his friend, not that Demi would allow more, anyway, so what was the problem if he sought out other girls? Why did he feel so creepy following her to the edge of the plaza? He nudged through the sparse, scattered inklings lingering between or before battles, clutching the stem of his roller over his shoulder as he watched the girl’s back from a few feet behind. It probably wasn’t all that healthy, he considered, that the girls he found most attractive were the ones to splat him over and over. 

He heard a scuffle from in front of him and looked up from the girl’s heels to meet her glare through the clouded lenses of her mask. He froze under her stare and shrugged guiltily in response to her unspoken accusations. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but one lifted to pull the mask free.

An annoyed sigh escaped through his dark lips as his mouth was freed. His jawline was strong, eyes lidded as he observed the sudden fall of Kyte’s anticipatory expression.

“You-You’re a guy?” he spluttered, knuckles turning white around his roller. He ran his eyes up and down the Squelcher’s equally surprised face, then his body again. How had he not noticed the straight lines of his figure, the lack of definition in his hips and chest and-

“Last I checked,” he replied dryly, licking along his sharp front teeth. “What do you want, besides to insult my masculinity?” The corners of his mouth perked upwards. 

“I’m sorry, actually,” Kyte flipped his aviators up from his face. 

“Did my feminine grace distract you back there?” he laughed from his throat, now full-on grinning down at Kyte from his extra few inches of height. He twirled one of his shorter front tentacles around his wrist and cocked his hip slightly.

Kyte was silent before replying. If he thought about it just right, it was totally this guy’s fault that he hadn’t played well. He had ruined the pattern of the beginning of the match, which had thrown off everything.

“Yes! Rematch!” Kyte demanded, standing board-straight and straightening his roller over his arm almost militarily.

“Let’s do it, kid. Wha’didya say your name was?”

“Kyte!” He barked in the same manner, sticking out his hand.

“Dex,” the boy slapped his own into Kyte’s with a grin. “So, was I a pretty girl?”


End file.
